Let's Travel to Bern!

Europe's most underrated capital? What do you think?

Bern is the capital of Switzerland, and after spending a couple of days there I must say it is pretty sweet. I think it definitely gets a nod for being underrated, because it was not on my radar when I first started to plan our trip to Europe. But when I needed a base in Central Switzerland where we could easily get to Munich, from Geneva, and day trip to the Swiss Alps, it came out as one of the options. It was awesome!

The city center of Bern retains medieval character with cobbled streets and fountains.

However, while keeping the very cool medieval aspects you can see the lines for the trams and buses that have been well incorporated into the old town. You might be thinking, wouldn't it be better if it was pedestrian only? You can kind of tell in the picture above that at this point you are on a hill and after walking up and down this hill once, Paul and I gladly took the bus. 

If you wander down this street and across the bridge you meet some of Bern's namesake...Bears!! Legend has it that Bern's founding Duke vowed to name the city after the first animal he met on the a hunt. Bears are still kept in a bear park (Barenpark).

The bear park is located along the banks of the River Aare that surrounds three sides of the city.

Is that the bluest river water you've ever seen? The water was shockingly clean and clear. Actually this was definitely a theme of Switzerland. Everything was very clean. Pristine.

The bear agrees. Time to head back up the hill.

***bus back up the hill***

Worth a visit is Berner Munster or Cathedral of Bern. The bell tower, under construction while we were there, is the tallest in Switzerland. 

Audio guides often vary in term of interest and usefulness. I really enjoyed the audio guide here (although it was a little pricey at $5 a piece I would gladly pay that again). The tour walks you around the entire inside and outside of the church providing interesting information without going overboard on hard to follow details. One of the stops was at the entrance to learn about the gothic Last Judgement sculpture. The right side represents the fallen, with the red flames, and the left side in blue and gold salvation.

After a full historical church tour we were in need of a recharge and made our way to the Einstein Kaffee und Rauchsalon or Einstein Cafe. The place had a cool vibe with "relatively the best" food and coffee. Perfect lunch.

While in the area we noticed someone's outrageous garden. How beautiful is this? I love the multi-tiered organization. Basically, a dream city backyard.

One great thing about Bern is that your bus pass (while expensive at a little over $11 a day **travel tip: unless you have the EURail pass, which we did because we were traveling primarily by train and we paid $7) is that you can take any form of public transportation / tram / random hill car...

We took this little beauty up and down a particularly steep hill in an effort to get to the local public pool (the blue patch in the middle of the picture below). I say in an effort, because it actually started raining on the day that we did this and it was closed when we got there. However, it looked awesome on this day.

To be honest the food in Bern was hit and miss and all pretty expensive. Actually, Paul at one point had to talk me off the ledge of putting off eating until we were in Germany...yes, it was that expensive. To be fair to Bern, Switzerland was just expensive in general, it wasn't Bern's fault! That being said we still had a couple of fantastic meals, the following at Froh Sinn in city center was my favorite. 

1) They served my tasty local beer from a chalice with the Bern Bear on it.

2) This "Bauernbratwurst Herkunft" aka Sausage with Potato Cheese Pancake was fantastic.

All in all, I would go back to Bern again. It was lovely and we missed a few things like actually getting to swim in the park and a tour of the Parliament Building (FYI, they don't have tours in English as often as you might think!). However, a close second to Bern for a city in central Switzerland was the city of Lucerne, which also looks beautiful and picturesque so perhaps Lucerne will be our next stop in Switzerland...when I save up enough money :) Have you been to either or both Bern and Lucerne, what do you think?